Sunday, 14 May 2017

How To | Marble Nail Art

I'm very much into marble anything right now (well, aren't we all?!), so I have been loving the marble nail trend and decided to give it a go! I only did an accent nail, but if you wanted to try it on all 10 fingers, I'm sure it would look fab! I used gel polish on my nails, but this would also work with normal polish.

Step 1
Prepare your gold foilby cutting it up into tiny pieces. You really dont need much so the smaller you can get it, the better (skip this part if you have chosen not to use foil). I chose gold foil, but it is down to personal preference! Paint your chosen nail with a clear base polish, followed by two coats of white polish.

Step 2
Grab a plastic bag or something similar (I used the plastic pouch my rubbing alcohol came in) and scribble onto it with your chosen black marker. Have your brushes ready to use!

Step 3
Dip your nail art brush into the bottle of rubbing alcohol and then onto the ink to dilute it. I used quite a thick brush as this will form the outline of the marble design. For the first outline, make sure the ink is quite diluted.

Step 4
Create some faint lines across your nail to mimic the veins of a piece of marble and allow to dry. I like to look at images of marble to give me some inspiration.

Step 5
Using a slightly thinner brush, dip into the rubbing alcohol and onto a darker section of the ink. Then begin painting over the lines you have already created to darken them up.

Step 6
Using another thin brush, dip into your chosen black polish and give your marble pattern some depth. I went a bit over the top with this step, so a light hand is definitely better!

Step 7
Using the first brush (from step 3), create some diluted ink again and add this to any areas where there isn't a lot of the marble pattern. I actually didn't do this and would definitely add it in next time as I think it gives the marble more dimension.

Step 8
Add a top coat and carefully place pieces of gold foil onto your nail before the top coat dries.

I then added a pink shade to the rest of my nails and added another accent nail using some chrome powder pigment. It definitely helps to be a bit more 'spontaneous' when drawing out the veins of the marble - I do think mine were too vertical and will try to be more varied next time!